[HN Gopher] Ask HN: Who has had a successful PWA product?
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Ask HN: Who has had a successful PWA product?
They say to find someone who's done what you want to do. We'll, I
want to re-launch a successful progressive web app (PWA). I had
some success ($500 MRR) with shareware, 20 years ago, but those
methods probably don't work anymore. What does work? If you've had
success, maybe you would be willing to exchange some email?
Author : codazoda
Score : 110 points
Date : 2024-06-19 04:20 UTC (18 hours ago)
| brylie wrote:
| Start with the customer needs rather than the technology. Do you
| have some specific product ideas? Those ideas would help steer
| technology decisions, particularly during the initial prototyping
| phase.
| throwaway9143 wrote:
| I'll give you a hard-earned tip: expect to fight Apple every step
| of the way. They will randomly erase _all local data_ (cookies,
| localstorage, push subscription tokens, etc) in your PWA without
| warning. They say they don 't do this, but I have the receipts.
| They want PWAs to suffer, and you will go insane trying to make
| workarounds on iPhone.
| thepra wrote:
| Even IndexedDb? Having a PWA based on webassembly(Blazor) that
| I test on an updated iPhone 6 I have to say that I didn't ever
| run in such issues, the experience is good even though the
| device is old.
| roywashere wrote:
| They definitely clear localstorage. But they also are honest
| about doing this under disk pressure -- can't find the link
| right now though. My old company had a Cordova app and we
| stored the client token in localstorage and we found some 16G
| phones losing their tokens and it turned out to be this. We
| changed to store tokens in the keyring. From a real web app
| you can't but I guess if you would use a cookie this might
| just work.
| aragonite wrote:
| Also sometimes localStorage gets cleared because it can
| easily become corrupted from concurrent writes. I had a
| userscript that made a few fetch calls whenever I visited a
| certain domain and saved the results in localStorage. Every
| week or so, all the data in localStorage would just get
| wiped. Switching to IndexedDB (via localForage) solved the
| problem.
| dotproto wrote:
| I was about to say "concurrent writes shouldn't be a
| problem because localStorage is synchronous and JS is
| single-threaded," but then I started thinking about
| multiple tabs, WebWorkers, and multi-process browsers and
| figured I should double-check the spec.
|
| > Warning! The localStorage getter provides access to
| shared state. This specification does not define the
| interaction with other agent clusters in a multiprocess
| user agent, and authors are encouraged to assume that
| there is no locking mechanism. A site could, for
| instance, try to read the value of a key, increment its
| value, then write it back out, using the new value as a
| unique identifier for the session; if the site does this
| twice in two different browser windows at the same time,
| it might end up using the same "unique" identifier for
| both sessions, with potentially disastrous effects.
|
| https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/webstorage.html#in
| tro...
| throwaway9143 wrote:
| Yes, a full local reset. Its an issue that plagued us for
| almost a year sporadically across several thousand customers.
| After instrumenting our app with very detailed remote
| logging, we were fortunate enough to catch it on one of our
| in-house local test iPhones. The logging showed an app with
| rich local state, the app close, then several minutes later
| the app open with no local state. Everything was wiped. This
| lined up with the feedback we had been receiving.
| Specifically for us, the push notification subscription
| tokens were being erased/revoked from the browser, meaning
| the customer couldn't receive notifications anymore. But the
| logging showed all local state was reset, including
| IndexedDb. If you dig through the Apple developer forums and
| StackOverflow, you will see many others complaining about
| this. You will also see links to resources claiming that
| Apple ITP does not do this for PWAs, specifically:
|
| https://webkit.org/tracking-prevention/#intelligent-
| tracking... "Home Screen Web Application Domain Exempt From
| ITP". This is 100% bullshit though.
|
| My personal belief is that Apple is purposefully nuking PWAs
| from orbit in a non-deterministic and "buggy" way because
| they are a threat to the app store business model, and I
| suspect if they frustrate enough developers, people will stay
| away from PWAs.
| terhechte wrote:
| Nah. I used to be a iOS developer. The official native
| frameworks are buggy as hell. Everything is broken all the
| time. Occam's razor is on this behaviour being just another
| bug that receives little attention because everything else
| is also buggy. I can't even blame them, the iOS api surface
| is huge, and every year there's new frameworks and every
| couple of years new devices. Android has the advantage of
| being open source, which allows external contributions to
| fix bugs, which oftentimes fixes the small-percentage bugs
| because one developer ran into it and decided to fix it. On
| iOS this is impossible, and there's no corporate incentive
| to fix small-percentage bugs.
| mirkodrummer wrote:
| You're wrong, this has nothing to do with bugs. We're
| speaking of Safari not implenting features for years and
| pushing back many of them because of "security". All bs.
| danlugo92 wrote:
| They have trillions, no excuse.
| DANmode wrote:
| Hoping everyone reading this understands what's being kept
| from us.
|
| Cross-platform webapps should be table stakes for adopting
| any platform.
| ec109685 wrote:
| Great point. The fact that they don't backup to the cloud PWA
| data makes it a non-starter for any app that wants a local only
| experience. It's trash.
| d1sxeyes wrote:
| I am not sure that I would be happy with a 'local only'
| experience actually backing up data to the cloud.
| ec109685 wrote:
| I mean if you explicitly enable iCloud backup, I think
| you'd expect that your app's data is backed up.
| gnfedhjmm2 wrote:
| I'm not saying this isn't true. Genuinely! but when I make up
| random unsubstantiated slander about other companies it gets
| removed instantly. What makes Apple different? You could never
| say this about substack or Tesla.
| meiraleal wrote:
| You can definitely say that about Tesla and most people don't
| care about substack
| bob1029 wrote:
| My most recent workaround for this is to put a session
| identifier in the URL somewhere and keep literally everything
| else on the server.
|
| You essentially have to build your app from zero with these
| limitations in mind if you want any chance at getting around
| them.
|
| This is a large part of why I am not a fan of frameworks and
| other popular design patterns. Having total control over how
| state is managed and communicated is really important if you
| don't want to get trapped in various tar pits.
| metadat wrote:
| Are you saying the Safari browser on iOS intentionally cripples
| web applications by randomly erasing / deleting browser data
| (cookies, localStorage, etc)? And this happens on purpose
| because apple wants to boost App Store Apps usage?
|
| If there is evidence of the veracity of this claim, this topic
| deserves a whole lot more attention. Especially considering
| Apple's stance on 3rd party mobile web browser engines - Apple
| forbids them, although EU regulation may force this to change.
|
| I searched a bit and found no smoking gun, the closest hit was:
|
| https://old.reddit.com/r/Safari/comments/185cra6/safari_nuki...
|
| But it seems more likely caused by legitimate bugs than any
| intentional campaign.
|
| Have I been nerdsniped here by a nutter? :-s
| bob1029 wrote:
| > Are you saying the Safari browser on iOS intentionally
| cripples web applications by randomly erasing / deleting
| browser data (cookies, localStorage, etc)?
|
| I would absolutely make this claim.
|
| This isn't even a PWA thing. We had a really simple series of
| boring web forms that suffered from this. The first iteration
| of this had the server swap an initial tokenized link for a
| cookie when clicked.
|
| After some feedback from our customers, we discovered that
| iOS users were having a lot of trouble getting all the way
| through the desired workflow. We were able to replicate this
| on our iOS devices but it seemed completely arbitrary.
|
| After abandoning cookies in favor of maintaining a tokenized
| URL, we found we were getting 100% success rate for iOS end
| users.
|
| My theory is there is a malicious bit of code in iOS Safari
| that is applying some insane cookie policy over "unpopular"
| domains.
| moralestapia wrote:
| I think they have a thing now where all stored data gets
| wiped every few days (in the name of privacy, purportedly).
| And yes, that broke a bunch of apps.
| DylanSp wrote:
| Does Safari on iOS support the File System API, specifically
| the origin private file system? Can you use that to reliably
| persist data into a file/SQLite database?
| mvdtnz wrote:
| Just refuse to service Apple customers. They can lie in the bed
| they've made.
| twooclock wrote:
| For my users having a PWA is completely irrelevant. Once they add
| it to home screen it's an app for them (I don't even bother to
| explain anymore). It might be a discoverability issue since they
| can't find you in app stores though.
| 1oooqooq wrote:
| why would you not put a wrapped pwa in the app store?
|
| isn't it a small racketeering/marketing price for the promissed
| discoverability?
| goosejuice wrote:
| Easier with Android. Apple requires many hurdles, at least
| for US. You'll also then have to revenue share.
|
| Depends on your audience on whether this will actually be
| worth the investment. Being on the app store doesn't
| necessarily make you visible anyhow. It's just easier to
| install for apple users.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| If you have a SaaS app, there is nothing stopping you from
| charging more in app to make up the difference and charging
| less outside the store
| goosejuice wrote:
| Good point, but I think app store presence would be more
| important in d2c rather than b2b SaaS.
|
| In that situation I don't think charging more would go
| over well with consumers.
|
| Have you seen this done?
| scarface_74 wrote:
| Spotify did it for awhile before they completely stopped
| accepting in app purchases. Paramount+ also use to do it.
|
| Netflix offers in app purchases for streaming
| subscriptions if you pay through their games. But only
| the ad tier.
|
| You can subscribe to YouTube or Hulu via in app
| subscriptions. But you can't subscribe to YouTube TV or
| Hulu Live TV via the app.
|
| I guess these days I would offer a higher month to month
| subscription through in app purchases and a lower yearly
| subscription from the web.
| carlonicora wrote:
| If you publish the app in the App Store you will have to give
| Apple a chunk of you revenue as well, not just the yearly fee
| Turing_Machine wrote:
| True enough. However, you also need to consider that
| customers are much more likely to hand their card number
| over to Apple than to some random website they've never
| heard of before. In fact, Apple probably already has it.
|
| 70% of something is more than 100% of nothing (especially
| when the product is software or something else that has a
| marginal cost of production of essentially zero).
| Turing_Machine wrote:
| Discoverability was a good argument at one time, but much
| less so with the shitshow the iOS app store has become.
| goosejuice wrote:
| What's the alternative? Certainly multi platform native only
| makes sense at a certain scale.
|
| Your question might be too light on details to provide much
| advice.
| knallfrosch wrote:
| Releases should be automated anyway. Once you set up the
| necessary pipelines, there is not that much work involved. I
| think our only pain point (team of ~7 devs) is keeping a
| Macbook around for iPad builds and debugging.
|
| But I guess you will need Macbook to debug any Safari issues
| too.
| goosejuice wrote:
| Are you referring to builds of a PWA wrapper shipped to the
| App store? If you don't mind sharing, how did your approval
| process go? Any hangups?
| carlosjobim wrote:
| If it's about making money or making a living, your best
| alternative is probably to make an app exclusively for the
| platform where most of your profitable customers are. You can
| expand to other platforms later if you get the scale.
| JoshTriplett wrote:
| What do you want to do with a PWA that you _can 't_ do with a
| webpage? If at all possible, try to use a webpage instead, to
| avoid the myriad problems and quirks that arise with PWAs. Only
| resort to a PWA if you need capabilities that you _can 't_ get as
| a webpage.
| pflenker wrote:
| Push notifications, for starters. But the more compelling
| argument is that from the user's point of view, an app is
| something else than a web page. Even the most basic feature -
| being represented at the Home Screen on the device - makes a
| huge difference.
| JoshTriplett wrote:
| I'm aware of the differences; I was encouraging the OP to
| consider whether those differences are worth the increased
| pain that comes with PWAs, particularly on Apple platforms.
| vjeux wrote:
| excalidraw.com is a PWA, but not unsure how helpful it's going to
| be as comparison. As mentioned in the comments, success is likely
| more due to the usefulness of the app rather than the tech used.
| vjeuxx@gmail.com if you wanna chat.
| keyle wrote:
| Unrelated, but this is just a joy to use. Well done.
| cpcat wrote:
| Unrelated, I'm interested in the tech behind it to build my own
| PWA. May I ask what tech stack you use. Sorry if it's obvious
| I'm just getting started
| arthurmorgan wrote:
| Not OP, but the source code can be found here:
| https://github.com/excalidraw/excalidraw
| e38383 wrote:
| I'm using https://thelounge.chat/ as PWA on all my devices and it
| works very good. Maybe you can contact them or look around the
| source yourself.
| LuisAPI wrote:
| Speaking of messaging apps, there's also
| https://app.revolt.chat/ designed to target a sort-of different
| userbase.
|
| Been using them as a PWA for a very long time.
| dualogy wrote:
| > had some success ($500 MRR) with shareware, 20 years ago
|
| Don't trigger my nostalgia! Fun times, been there done that
| 2005-2008
| https://web.archive.org/web/20080118184913/http://www.sudoku...
| -- then sold it on to another "micro-ISV" (the popular term for
| indie software maker back then)
| hi-v-rocknroll wrote:
| _Don 't copy that floppy!_ (Busts out greaseweazle and Central
| Point - Copy II PC Option Board Enhanced, and Nevrlock)
|
| The 5.25" and 3.5" floppy disk shareware cardboard bins on
| tables at Weird Stuff.[0] This was the equivalent to [Download
| Demo] in the 90's, except they made you drive to a brick &
| mortar store and pay for privilege.
|
| 0. https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/weirdstuff-warehouse
| codazoda wrote:
| So much nostalgia! I miss the used book stores and the
| shareware racks of floppies (which I think another user
| mentioned).
| stpn wrote:
| I run a personal finance app that's built as a PWA
| (https://tender.run, my email is in my profile).
|
| I would say running as a PWA has been a mixed bag. There are
| quite a few missing features across web platforms (for starters,
| background sync, full featured push notifications, haptics) that
| make it hard to be competitive with native apps. Every WWDC, we
| watch in hopes that Safari gets more PWA features, but it's a
| thin drip. There's a reason so many apps repackage into
| electron/cordova/whatever shells.
|
| As other folks in thread have pointed out, it's probably worth
| thinking through why a product works particularly as a PWA vs
| alternative distribution methods.
| sidcool wrote:
| Flipkart
| palsecam wrote:
| https://FreeSolitaire.win is a successful PWA of mine.
|
| It's a Klondike Solitaire game. It used to bring ~$500/mo of
| advertising revenue, but that's significantly down these days: I
| refuse to have a cookie/consent banner, so I refuse customized
| ads (in the UE, in some US states now, &c.)
|
| Players do add it to homescreen. There is a non-intrusive button
| prompting them to do so, at the end of a game. People like to be
| able to play offline. Apart from that, I don't use much
| PWA/browser features; no notifications, etc.
|
| More info here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34483398
| Happy to answer any question you may have! Happy to get some
| feedback too ;-)
| jb1991 wrote:
| I don't know much about these kinds of apps, but when I visit
| your game page, I don't see any way to actually add it to the
| homepage on my iPhone. Is this something that iOS doesn't
| allow, or is there another way to do it? The game looks pretty
| cool though :)
| nefarious_ends wrote:
| In Safari hit the share button then scroll down and hit Add
| to Home Screen.
| palsecam wrote:
| This.
|
| Safari (and Firefox) does not have
| https://developer.mozilla.org/en-
| US/docs/Web/API/BeforeInsta... So you can't have a custom
| button/way to prompt players to install.
|
| However, they can install a PWA manually, by themselves;
| there is the option somewhere in their browser menu.
| jb1991 wrote:
| That's interesting, thanks. I just did it successfully, I
| don't think I've ever installed an app like this before.
| So I guess when I click it it's just opening a browser
| window with no actual browser controls and then loading
| the site?
| palsecam wrote:
| Exactly.
|
| _"it's just opening a browser window with no actual
| browser controls"_ : yes, due to the `display` setting in
| the app manifest: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-
| US/docs/Web/Manifest/displa...
|
| It's similar to a `WebView` component:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebView
| jb1991 wrote:
| Why do they use the words progressive web app, seems like
| a fancy term for just saving a link to your home screen.
| Is there some additional benefit you get besides this
| shortcut? Does it do things a webpage does not once it's
| been added to your home screen?
| palsecam wrote:
| It basically is nothing more than a glorified shortcut.
| The installed app gets a custom load screen. It gets
| listed on the device installed apps list, and can be
| removed from there.
|
| But there is nothing a PWA can do that a website can't
| do. It's all about Web APIs. Take push notifications
| (https://developer.mozilla.org/en-
| US/docs/Web/Progressive_web...): they make more sense for
| an (PW)app, but a simple website can do them too (if
| given permission).
|
| See MDN intro on PWA: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-
| US/docs/Web/Progressive_web..., or
| https://web.dev/learn/pwa/ for more info.
| goosejuice wrote:
| Installing the app on iOS is a pain point for users. If
| you have a significant iOS user presence it's a concern.
|
| If Apple supported this API it would be much easier to
| convince stakeholders that PWA is enough.
|
| You can do browser detection and show a dismissible pop
| up with instructions but it will still just confuse some
| users and others with scoff at the need to do that.
| nefarious_ends wrote:
| Hey great app! I really like the "undo until unstuck" feature,
| I haven't seen that before. Is there an algorithm for that or
| did you come up with something yourself?
| palsecam wrote:
| Thanks!
|
| The algorithm is described here:
| https://FreeSolitaire.win/strategy I came up with it by
| myself.
|
| _"The strategy presented here is the basis of the computer
| algorithm of FreeSolitaire.win, which is used to select
| finishable deals, offer hints, and detect dead-ends. You also
| see it surface when you are told that_ The computer could do
| it in N moves _at the end of a game.
|
| This strategy/algorithm is quite simple. It does not require
| to "count cards", i.e. keep track of which cards were seen in
| the stock. It doesn't require to make guesses on where such
| or such face-down card must be located. And the procedure is
| the same all along the game; there is no special treatement
| of the opening or ending. It's _stateless _, a programmer
| would say. [...]"_
| moralestapia wrote:
| >I came up with it by myself.
|
| That is truly great, @palsecam. I love HN because of this!
| raybb wrote:
| What ad network are you using?
| palsecam wrote:
| AdSense.
| jb1991 wrote:
| I just discovered something interesting while playing your
| game: I've been playing solitaire incorrectly for my entire
| life, several decades! I thought maybe you had changed the
| rules but then I just looked up the rules and I see it's I who
| have apparently been playing it incorrectly. When I was taught
| solitaire by my grandparents, instead of turning over one card
| when you are out of moves, you always turn over three cards.
| The only way to unlock those cards you passed over in dealing
| three instead of one is to play one of them which will change
| the sequence of every three cards the next time you move
| through that deck. This certainly makes the game harder to win.
| palsecam wrote:
| Oh, you can play in "draw 3 by 3" mode too:
| https://FreeSolitaire.win/turn-three ;-)
|
| (You can also choose the mode in the New Game dialog.)
|
| And yes, it's indeed harder. The solving algorithm has a
| winning rate of 52% in "turn one" mode, but only 18% in "turn
| three".
| danmur wrote:
| That's how I learned it too.
| morbicer wrote:
| Nice and clean!
|
| How did you get it off the ground and gather first users?
| palsecam wrote:
| Thanks!
|
| Word of mouth, mainly. Posted it on Reddit back then, things
| like that. It grew organically from that. And, although it's
| far from being on top results on SERP (search engine result
| pages), some people do find it that way.
|
| Also: because it's so lightweight, it got included some years
| ago in the Moya app
| (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=nu.bi.moya), a
| popular messaging app in South Africa that is "data-free" for
| users (it does reverse-billing). Now half the players are
| South Africans!
| metadat wrote:
| Why does it let you sort through the card deck one-by-one? Ime
| mkst solitaire offers the top of a set of three.
|
| Maybe it's just a different style of solitaire? This one seems
| too easy, though. Well done app, regardless - cheers! :)
| palsecam wrote:
| There is also the "turn 3 by 3" mode! Please see
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40726628, just below in
| this thread.
| ttymck wrote:
| Your buy a coffee link was not clickable on Firefox Android
| joshstrange wrote:
| Whenever this argument comes up it reminds me of how detached
| from reality HN is on this subject.
|
| Customers want apps. Companies want apps. No one except us nerds
| want PWAs. We can talk about how PWAs are second class citizens
| and how unfair that is or we can remember that end-users _do not
| care_ about the underlying technology. We constantly make this
| mistake, customer don't care what language you are using, they
| don't care what framework you use, they don't care about native
| vs web, they just want it to work.
|
| I've been developing cross platform mobile apps (web, iOS,
| native) for around 15 years (Titanium, Cordova, and now
| Capacitor) and while the lesson has been painful: no one cares
| about PWAs. I will tell clients "you can go to <website> and see
| exactly what your app will look like once it's packaged for the
| app stores" and they will simply wait for the native app instead.
| I've lost count of the number of times the code has been running
| on the web for weeks+ and it's not till it's in the stores that I
| get _any_ feedback (things they could have easily seen in the web
| version but didn't bother with till it was an "app").
|
| You can complain about this, you can talk about how unfair it is,
| you can extol the virtues of PWAs but at the end of the day it
| just doesn't matter. Customers have spoken, they want apps. I
| launched my current company as a website/PWA and all I got was a
| lot of heartache: "I can't find it in the App Store". Not a
| single person said "thank you for making this a website". In
| fact, I get 1-2 complaints (from thousands of users) of "I don't
| want to download an app" to which I tell them "you don't have to,
| the website spells this out very clearly, you can use the website
| and/or save it to your home screen, no app install needed". I
| tell that story to illustrate how few people even say they care,
| but also can't grok that they don't need to install an app. That
| "1-2" pales in comparison to the people who complained about it
| not being a "real app".
|
| So if you want to fight against native apps be my guest but
| you're fighting a battle that customers do not care about (I
| cannot stress enough that: HN != normal customers) and they will
| not thank you for. Yes, the 15-30% "tax" can suck but 15% of $X
| is better than 0% of $Y. You will simply miss out on a large
| number of customers if you refuse to make an app.
|
| No customer has ever cared if you use spaces or tabs internally
| and they don't care if you provide a PWA, they just want open
| their platform's App Store and search for your app. The ship has
| sailed on this topic and you can complain about it or you can
| live in reality and go to where your customers are, the app
| stores.
|
| You can say this isn't fair but as my dad used to say: the fair
| comes once a year and if you miss it, it's your own damn fault.
| lostfocus wrote:
| That's why there are efforts to get platform companies to allow
| putting PWAs into their app stores. I think on Android it's
| already possible with a thin wrapper and with regulatory
| pressure it might be necessary for other platforms to enable
| that as well.
| joshstrange wrote:
| You can put PWAs in all the app stores today with a thin
| wrapper, I know, I do it for all my apps.
| goosejuice wrote:
| What is your preferred method of wrapping? No resistance
| from Apple? I've read of many instances of wrapped PWAs not
| getting approved for the app store. I guess mileage may
| vary
| joshstrange wrote:
| I use Capacitor (via Quasar, though you will only want to
| use this if you use Vue and like Quasar, else maybe look
| into Ionic if you sue React or Angular). If you don't use
| a framework or don't want to use Quasar/Ionic then you
| can use Capacitor "raw" but I've not done that before.
| its-all-waves wrote:
| Not for Apple/iOS!
| joshstrange wrote:
| I have over 10 apps in the Apple App Store store using
| Capacitor without any issues.
| throwaway9143 wrote:
| "customer don't care what language/framework you are using" is
| a strange way to support a claim they _do_ care about having a
| native app over a PWA. The first statement highlights that the
| user just wants something that works as advertised, and doesn
| 't care about the framework. But the second statement
| highlights that, despite their disinterest in the technology,
| they care deeply about the app's delivery tech (PWAs vs
| native). I think this juxtaposition reveals a lot about why
| things are the way they are, and why users are forced to care
| about native apps over PWAs.
|
| Just like language is a vehicle for logic, the app delivery
| tech is just a vehicle for a UI. PWA tech sucks because
| platforms are incentivized to make it suck. People prefer
| native apps because they're being funnelled down that path by
| anti-competitive interests. You don't seem to make that
| connection.
|
| I get it, you were burned by PWAs and now you just want to
| build something that works for everyone relatively painlessly
| and makes money. Nothing wrong with that. But some of us also
| want support tech that fulfills the goals of the open web. You
| don't seem to care about that, but others do. Telling everyone
| its basically a lost cause is a silly and pointless endeavor,
| because PWAs are the long game, and you're playing the short
| game.
| lynx23 wrote:
| I have a different take. As a person reliant on
| accessibility, PWAs almost always deliver a worse experience
| for me. So after a while, I _learnt_ to prefer native apps,
| simply because PWAs typically deliver a worse UX for me.
| throwaway9143 wrote:
| That's interesting. In what way is a PWA worse than a
| website wrt accessibility? I understand that you are
| comparing PWAs to native apps, but presumably you have a
| fine time with normal websites? PWAs shouldn't be any
| different.
| iudqnolq wrote:
| The user doesn't care about the delivery tech. They care
| about the installation and usage experience. They want to go
| search the app store, click the button, and get an icon on
| their homescreen.
| Turing_Machine wrote:
| How is requiring the user to open a completely different
| application a better "user experience" than installing it
| from the web page they're already on?
|
| Yes, I know that installing a PWA is confusing (especially
| on Apple's systems), but there no reason it has to be that
| way.
|
| PWA (if it were implemented properly): "Click here to
| install app". Click. Confirmation dialog. App is installed.
| App opens _in the same window_.
|
| App store: "Click here to install app". Click. An _entirely
| different application opens_. Confirmation dialog. App is
| installed. You open it, but now you 're in a different
| context.
| throwaway9143 wrote:
| Bingo. Defenders of the app store have severe stockholm
| syndrome. Apple ruins the PWA experience intentionally,
| so they blame people who use PWAs, instead of Apple.
| meiraleal wrote:
| PWA has no marketing budget and a lot of people invested
| on private app stores attacking it.
| jmb99 wrote:
| > PWA (if it were implemented properly): "Click here to
| install app". Click. Confirmation dialog. App is
| installed. App opens in the same window.
|
| > App store: "Click here to install app". Click. An
| entirely different application opens. Confirmation
| dialog. App is installed. You open it, but now you're in
| a different context.
|
| You're unfortunately oversimplifying the PWA
| installation. Say a user has heard of a new service
| called "Florb" which has a PWA and a native app. To
| install natively:
|
| 1. Open the App Store
|
| 2. Tap the search button (optional, might already be
| selected)
|
| 3. Search "Florb"
|
| 4. Tap Get
|
| 5. Confirm download
|
| For the PWA:
|
| 1. Open Safari
|
| 2. Search for Florb using your chosen search engine
|
| 3. Open Florb homepage
|
| 4. Tap "share"
|
| 5. Hunt and scroll for "Add to Home Screen"
|
| 6. Tap "Add to Home Screen"
|
| 7. Give the app a name
|
| 8. Tap Add
|
| This is ignoring the possibility that searching Florb
| returns other sites first (maybe news articles about the
| neat service, or a wiki page), nor that there are usually
| enough ads on google pages to completely obscure the
| first real results from the screen on page load. Yes, the
| App Store also shows an ad, and it's possible for other
| similarly named apps to appear first in the list, but
| it's generally less of a problem than relying on google
| searches.
|
| Even ignoring the fact that the average user doesn't know
| or care that PWAs exist, the first option is simply
| easier and more reliable. There's no getting around that.
| And that's also ignoring that PWAs are, to an average
| user, "installing a website" rather than "installing an
| app," which just _feels_ wrong.
|
| "Add to Home Screen" has been available on iOS since at
| least iOS 4 (that's the first time I remember seeing it,
| but it may have been around longer). If people don't care
| about it yet, I have a hard time believing they will any
| time soon unless it is substantially and objectively
| better than the App Store.
| mvdtnz wrote:
| This is an idiotic way of breaking it down. How does the
| user even know Florb exists? They're already on the web
| at this stage. You're also being totally disingenuous
| with your break down. Why does the user have to "hunt and
| scroll" for the app on the PWA side but not the app
| store? Go ahead, search for "fastmail" on your Android
| app store and tell me what the first and most prominent
| result is.
|
| And when I click "add to home" in my browser's menu I
| don't need to name the app. The app has a name. What are
| you talking about?
| joshstrange wrote:
| > But some of us also want support tech that fulfills the
| goals of the open web. You don't seem to care about that, but
| others do. Telling everyone its basically a lost cause is a
| silly and pointless endeavor, because PWAs are the long game,
| and you're playing the short game.
|
| Get off the cross, we could use the wood.
|
| Spare me. I love the web, in fact all my "apps" are built
| with web tech and I offer them all as websites/PWAs in
| addition to apps but standing on principals of only using the
| web as some kind of middle finger to the app stores AND your
| customers is just silly.
|
| So I bite the bullet and wrap my web apps in a thin wrapper
| and shove them into the App Store. You can call it principles
| but I just call it stubborn and dragging your customers into
| a crusade they don't care about.
|
| At the end of the day I care about the customers of my
| products more than I care about trying to wage a losing war
| against something they actively want, apps from stores.
|
| Life is way too short to tie up your identity in things like
| this. I want to spend my time making products people enjoy
| using. If you actually care so much about PWAs then stop
| writing PWAs that your users hate using and go be a full time
| advocate for that instead. Right now shipping PWAs is a worse
| experience so the only one you hurt is yourself and your
| customers when you double down on them.
| meiraleal wrote:
| Are you ok?
|
| Your hate for PWAs seems a bit excessive. Nowadays it's
| possible to build binaries for iOS and Android using PWAs
| and it'll behave just live your Cordova projects. Don't be
| stuck in the past.
| joshstrange wrote:
| Please read my full comment:
|
| > I love the web, in fact all my "apps" are built with
| web tech and I offer them all as websites/PWAs
|
| I'm well aware you can build binaries and ship a PWA, I
| literally do that. I don't hate PWAs, I dislike people
| that refuse to ship anything but PWAs and I especially
| dislike being told I don't care about the "open web".
|
| If you want to be a martyr and _only_ ship PWAs be my
| guest but pretending it's noble is just silly and drags
| your customers (you know, the people you should actually
| care about) into a battle they don't give 2 shits about
| all while making their experience worse.
| throwaway9143 wrote:
| >I dislike people that refuse to ship anything but PWAs
|
| What a weird thing to get all bent out of shape over.
| People do things a different way than you, get over it.
| If someone wants to only ship PWAs, why does that bother
| you so much? Because they're hurting users, and you're
| trying to protect them?
| mardifoufs wrote:
| Yes, if so he's right. PWAs are a bad experience for the
| user or at least a worse one than even just a webapp
| wrapped in a native app, regardless of the reasons. I've
| never had a pwa not feel like a hanky browser tab, and
| this is on android.
| throwaway9143 wrote:
| Yeah but nobody here is making the case that PWAs are
| better than native apps. The point is that PWAs are worth
| getting better support because it's better for everyone.
| throwaway9143 wrote:
| >If you actually care so much about PWAs then stop writing
| PWAs that your users hate using and go be a full time
| advocate for that instead.
|
| I do care about PWAs, and so I am advocating, right now. I
| don't know why you come across as so angry about people who
| advocate for PWAs. Pushing companies to adhere to open web
| standards is a good thing, otherwise we'd still be stuck in
| IE6 world.
| jmb99 wrote:
| It doesn't count as advocating is your audience is only
| people who (in general) agree with you. I don't think
| anyone on hackernews _wants_ PWAs to be a worse
| experience, but they _are_. If you want to make a
| difference, you're not gonna make it here.
|
| "Preaching to the choir" comes to mind.
| throwaway9143 wrote:
| >If you want to make a difference, you're not gonna make
| it here.
|
| I'm replying to the people who disagree with me here, and
| there are several. The readers who are on the fence can
| make up their own mind. Your discouragement is not
| necessary or useful.
| JimDabell wrote:
| > Customers want apps. Companies want apps. No one except us
| nerds want PWAs.
|
| I used to work on a platform that offered native iOS apps,
| native Android apps, and PWA / web apps for all our customers.
| When users were given the choice, around two thirds opted for
| the native iOS app, about a quarter opted for the native
| Android app, and about 10% opted for the PWA / web app. That's
| _including_ desktop users, not just mobile.
|
| Users want native apps.
| KingMob wrote:
| More likely, users want something that works, is a good
| experience, and don't care about apps _per se_ at all.
|
| If Apple wasn't hamstringing PWAs, they might be viable for
| more categories of software.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| And if you are creating an app, most of the time you want a
| web page too for PCs. If it's only Apple, then why don't
| companies just build a PWA for PC users and Android users
| and only write an app for iOS users?
| KingMob wrote:
| You talk a lot about what customers want, but they want apps
| only because Apple makes PWAs so unpleasant. There are some
| tech limitations (games might be tougher), but most of what
| makes PWAs suck is Apple.
|
| In another timeline, Apple chose to double-down on PWAs instead
| of the App Store after the iphone 1, and PWAs are the majority
| of non-performance-sensitive smartphone applications.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| Every single "write once run everywhere" technology has
| sucked compared to native apps.
|
| Developers complained when the first iPhone came out and when
| Steve Jobs called web apps a "sweet solution". Even Gruber
| called the solution a "shit sandwich".
|
| If it's only Apple holding PWAs back, then why do most of the
| same companies write Android apps instead of just producing
| PWAs that work on PCs and Android devices?
| iknowstuff wrote:
| Tell that to users of https://sniffies.com nsfw
|
| Can't have that on the app store.
| joshstrange wrote:
| That's not a good example, I'll bet 99% of users of that
| website couldn't tell you it's a PWA or what a PWA is. All
| they know is that the only way to get this "app" is add it to
| the home screen and if it was allowed in the App Store they'd
| all get it from there instead.
|
| That's not customers choosing PWA over native, it's customers
| forced to use PWA since native isn't an option.
| iknowstuff wrote:
| Yeah, we don't disagree on that. It just seems that for end
| users prudish app stores are the only option for procuring
| apps.
| JoeyJoJoJr wrote:
| Users also have their favourite messaging apps and services,
| completely oblivious to the fact that it's actually completely
| stupid that there is basically no interoperability between
| these apps and services. Imagine if Yahoo mail could never send
| emails to Hotmail or Gmail.
|
| People in the know rightfully care about the erosion of
| standards for which big tech have built their empires upon.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| How do you make messaging apps inoperable and guarantee end
| to end encryption? How do you add features to your messaging
| app without having to wait years for a standard body?
| postalrat wrote:
| Are you using a hackernews app to use hackernews?
| joshstrange wrote:
| On my phone? Yes, a combo of Octal and HACK, but I often fall
| back to the web since the apps don't expose everything.
|
| On my computer I always use the web. I prefer the web on my
| computer but on my phone apps can provide a nicer experience
| (larger touch targets, swipe gestures, etc). But in general I
| find the phone (and tablet) limiting and if I need to do any
| actual "research" I immediately move to my computer where I
| can open multiple tabs and move between them easier.
| scubadude wrote:
| Apple killed PWAs years ago.
| eggzy wrote:
| I run a web client for my app https://github.com/karlomikus/vue-
| salt-rim and I'm using some PWA features. It's mostly just to get
| the native app feeling since I don't want to maintain separate
| apps for all the platforms.
| knallfrosch wrote:
| Definitely feels like you're putting the cart before the horse.
| You've got the technology nailed down, but haven't explained why.
| What platforms are you even targeting?
| franciscop wrote:
| I have made 2 PWAs that I use daily myself, so I consider them a
| success! Also one Electron (which I later migrated to Tauri)
| desktop app and I'm wrapping up another (which took ~2 days).
|
| Nothing big/fancy as you probably want, but for me they are
| definitely successes for me!
| iknowstuff wrote:
| https://sniffies.com is bar none the most successful PWA I've
| seen in the wild. Push notifications despite Apple's nonsense and
| all. Impossible to have an equivalent on the app store. Nsfw.
| the_florist wrote:
| https://flowery.app is exclusively a PWA. It was designed from
| the ground up to prioritize the "Add to Home Screen" experience
| on iOS. The web is the ideal platform given the app's emphasis on
| text and typography, and a native replica would be reinventing
| the wheel for no tangible benefit to the user.
|
| WebKit and Safari have come a long way. Flowery puts browser
| engines through their paces with its UI animation, which is
| smoothest on WebKit. Safari's OS integration (e.g., elastic
| scroll, Sonoma's "Add to Dock") is more polished than Chrome's.
|
| It wasn't a walk in the park though. An early decision, after
| maddening attempts to circumvent browser quirks five years ago,
| was to build substitutes for common building blocks of the
| browser on mobile, notably the virtual keyboard, textboxes, and
| text selection. This wouldn't have been possible without web
| components and Google's excellent Lit library.
| codazoda wrote:
| Thanks for sharing. The app functions really well and is
| beautiful. It took me quite a while to figure out what it does
| and I'm still not 100% sure I understand completely. Is the app
| profitable? How do people find out about it?
| danlugo92 wrote:
| Twitter.
| tk90 wrote:
| tinder has a great PWA web app: tinder.com
| Havoc wrote:
| I'm using the phind pwa on my iPhone so I guess that's an example
| that I'd imagine could be classed as successful
| noashavit wrote:
| Google meet has a PWA
| https://support.google.com/meet/answer/10708569?hl=en
| akmittal wrote:
| Twitter was an excellent PWA untill someone ruined it so that
| everyone would use native app.
|
| Flipkart.com and housing.com and few good examples
| acidburnNSA wrote:
| I still just use the website for twitter. What am I missing out
| on?
| janandonly wrote:
| I don't, but the people who've build and run
| https://app.mutinywallet.com/ are rocking it.
| nathancoleman wrote:
| As someone who started investing in PWAs earlier this year after
| jumping through Apple and Google's hoops for years, I'd highly
| recommend progressier.com for making a PWA with an install
| experience that makes sense to less technical users. This was far
| and away the biggest hurdle for me. Haven't had a single person
| confused since integrating Progressier.
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